Tag: corporate malfeasance

The aim of this review is to examine the relationship between genetically modified (GM) crops and health, based on histopathological investigations of the digestive tract in rats. We reviewed published long-term feeding studies of crops containing one or more of three specific traits: herbicide tolerance via the EPSPS gene and insect resistance via cry1Ab or cry3Bb1 genes. These genes are commonly found in commercialised GM crops.

Our search found 21 studies for nine (19%) out of the 47 crops approved for human and/or animal consumption. We could find no studies on the other 38 (81%) approved crops.

Fourteen out of the 21 studies (67%) were general health assessments of the GM crop on rat health. Most of these studies (76%) were performed after the crop had been approved for human and/or animal consumption, with half of these being published at least nine years after approval. Our review also discovered an inconsistency in methodology and a lack of defined criteria for outcomes that would be considered toxicologically or pathologically significant.

In addition, there was a lack of transparency in the methods and results, which made comparisons between the studies difficult. The evidence reviewed here demonstrates an incomplete picture regarding the toxicity (and safety) of GM products consumed by humans and animals. Therefore, each GM product should be assessed on merit, with appropriate studies performed to indicate the level of safety associated with them. Detailed guidelines should be developed which will allow for the generation of comparable and reproducible studies. This will establish a foundation for evidence-based guidelines, to better determine if GM food is safe for human and animal consumption.

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excerpts

Have enough studies been conducted to adequately state that GM crops are safe for human and animal consumption?

Genetically modified crops have been approved for human and animal consumption for nearly 20 years (Clive and Krattiger, 1996) yet the debate about their safety continues. Fifty-three crops are known to possess at least one of the genes investigated in this review (herbicide tolerance via the EPSPS gene and insect resistance via the cry1Ab or cry3Bb1 genes). Forty-seven of these crops have been approved for animal and/or human consumption, yet published toxicity studies could be found for only nine of these crops (19%) ( Table 1). Of greater concern is that for eight of these crops, publications appeared after the crop had been approved for human and/or animal consumption. We understand that other studies may exist that are commercial in confidence, but these studies are not accessible to the scientific community. Other than the few studies mentioned in the EFSA reports, where histopathological results were not reported, our review of the published literature wasn’t able to identify or locate any reported safety evaluations performed on rats on these eight crops prior to their approval. Our literature review also did not identify or locate published reports on rats for the remaining 38 crops.

The present review limited the search to only include feeding studies done on rats so that the results may be comparable. It is possible that more studies may be found if the search were to be extended to other animals. However, based on what has been found for rat studies, it is unlikely that any additional studies would involve a thorough safety investigation and a detailed report of all of the 47 approved GM crops possessing one or more of the three traits. Moreover, the rat model is the accepted OECD standard for toxicological studies of this type.

Whilst the safety of a GM crop is primarily and sometimes solely evaluated by government food regulators using the test for substantial equivalence, this is likely to be inadequate to fully assess the safety of the crop for reasons stated above. Animal feeding studies provide a more thorough method of investigating the unintended effects of the GM process or the unintended effects of ingesting GM crop components. Animal feeding studies can identify target organs as well as predict the chronic toxic effect of an ingested compound (OECD, 2008)

Conclusions

The evidence reviewed here demonstrates an incomplete picture regarding the toxicity (and safety) of GM crops consumed by humans and animals. The majority of studies reviewed lacked a unified approach and transparency in their methodology and results, making it impossible to properly review or repeat these studies. Furthermore, such lack of detail makes it difficult to generate evidence-based guidelines to aid in the delivery of an optimum safety assessment process for GM crops for animal and human consumption.

When considering how a better risk assessment could be done, it is important to consider systems established for other novel substances that may generate unintended effects. For example, the registration of pharmaceutical products requires an examination of both benefits and risks associated with their use and a complete assessment of those benefits and risks to establish whether the products are appropriate for general use at a range of doses. We argue that each GM crop should be assessed using similar methods, where a GM crop is tested in the form and at the rates it will be consumed by animals and people.

Whilst this provides for an effective general approach, there are additional issues for assessing GM crops that need to be taken into account. For example, the process of developing GM crops may generate unintended effects. Furthermore, the plant developed is a novel entity with genes, regulatory sequences and proteins that interact in complex ways. Therefore, the resultant plant should be assessed as a whole so that any pleiotropic effects can also be assessed. As a result, long-term animal feeding studies should be included in risk assessments of GM crops, together with thorough histopathological investigations using a variety of methods to better detect subtle changes or the beginning or presence of pathologies. Such robust and detailed studies will then make it possible to put evidence-based guidelines in place, which will substantially help to determine the safety of GM crops for human and animal consumption

In the event that another person in the United States tests positive for Ebola, they could be re-routed to one of a handful of hospitals that are specifically equipped and trained to deal with deadly viruses like Ebola, confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Tom Frieden during a press conference on Oct. 20.

“There’s a need for specialized centers when there is a patient with confirmed Ebola, or a number of patients if that were to happen in the future,” said Frieden, though he did not specify which hospitals would be among the designated group. “We need to increase the margin of safety.”

So far during this outbreak, only four hospitals across the United States have experience treating Ebola patients: Nebraska Medicine, Emory University Hospital, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

“There are many hospitals in the country that are already in the process of becoming proficient in care of patients with Ebola,” said Frieden. “We’re focusing first on Dallas, where they’ve been dealing with Ebola, and in case there are additional cases that arise there, they’ll be ready to care for them.”

In addition to announcing the hospital plan, Frieden also confirmed significant changes to safety protocol for U.S. health workers who are caring for Ebola patients. The changes were reached by consensus among “all people in the U.S. with experience with Ebola,” as well as Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The changes include: rigorous and repeated training of the donning and doffing of personal protective equipment (PPE), to the point that the steps become “ritualized,” no skin exposure when PPE is worn, and a trained hospital staff monitor that oversees health workers putting on and removing PPE.

The CDC also now recommends that health workers wear a respirator — either an N95 respirator or powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) — while with the patient in his or her isolation unit. This doesn’t mean that the virus is airborne, Frieden explained, but that procedures that are undertaken in the U.S., like intubation or suctioning — procedures that require close contact with the nose and mouth of patients — may pose a higher risk to health workers than the supportive care measures conducted in West Africa.

The CDC has faced increased scrutiny and criticism over their recommended safety protocols after Texas Health nurses Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson contracted Ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with the virus in the U.S. Pham was later transferred to NIH Clinical Center for Ebola treatment, while Vinson was transferred to Emory University Hospital. These changes are in a response to Pham and Vinson’s positive diagnoses, said Frieden.

“We may never know exactly how [transmission] happened, but the bottom line is that the guidelines didn’t work for that hospital,” said Frieden. “Dallas shows that taking care of Ebola is hard.”

After emerging months ago in eastern Sierra Leone, Ebola is now hitting the western edges of the country where the capital is located with dozens of people falling sick each day, the government said Tuesday. So many people are dying that removing bodies is reportedly a problem.

Forty-nine confirmed cases of Ebola emerged in just one day, Monday, in two Ebola zones in and around the capital, the National Ebola Response Center, or NERC, said. Lawmaker Claude Kamanda who represents a western area said more than 20 deaths are being reported daily.

Kamanda told the local Politico newspaper that authorities are experiencing challenges collecting corpses from both quarantined and non-quarantined homes.

Authorities say the uncontrolled movement of people from the interior to Waterloo which is the gateway to Freetown, the capital, has fueled the increase of Ebola cases in the west. There is a strong feeling that people are violating the quarantines elsewhere and coming to Freetown through Waterloo.

There are 851 total confirmed Ebola cases in the two zones, called Western Area Urban and Western Area Rural, the NERC said. In numbers of cases, they may soon surpass a former epicenter of the outbreak in the country, the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun where there have been a total of 1,012 confirmed cases.

No new cases were reported Monday in Kenema and Kailahun but a World Health Organization spokeswoman said it is too early to declare that the epidemic has burned itself out in the east.

“There was a drop in new cases in Kenema and Kailahun and fingers were crossed but there has been a bit of a flare up thanks to a couple of unsafe burials,” said Margaret Harris, WHO’s spokeswoman in Sierra Leone. “So it’s too early to say we have a real decline … definitely too early to say it’s been beaten there.”

A local newspaper suggested Tuesday that authorities quarantine Waterloo. The World Food Program over the weekend delivered emergency food rations to people there.

“The growing fear has left the public with no choice but to call on the Government for Waterloo to be quarantined as was done to other places including Kailahun, Kenema, Bombali, Port Loko and Moyamba Districts,” the Exclusive newspaper said.

Many residents of the capital note that Ebola has followed the same route across the country as rebels who in 1991 started a savage war in Kailahun district. The war ended in Freetown a decade later where the final battle was fought. Now the enemy is a disease, and the president is putting in place a more military-style response.

President Ernest Bai Koroma last week appointed Defense Minister Alfred Palo Conteh as CEO of the National Ebola Response Center, whose headquarters are being placed at the former War Crimes Tribunal for Sierra Leone in the west end of Freetown together with the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response.

The West African nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea — where the outbreak first emerged 10 months ago — have been hit hard by Ebola with more than 4,500 deaths, according to WHO estimates. A few cases have also emerged in the United States and Spain.

In Guinea on Tuesday, hundreds of residents in the Conakry suburban neighborhood of Kaporo Rail protested the construction of an Ebola treatment center nearby.

“We don’t want the hospital here. They want to infect our neighborhood,” said Binta Sow, the spokesman of the group. Kaporo Rail has a thriving market for ice cream and milk that employs hundreds of women and youth. There were worries this could harm the local economy.

“No one will buy anything here if they erect the center,” said a local ice cream vendor.

On Tuesday the East African nation of Rwanda was singling out travelers from the U.S. and Spain for special screening. A Rwandan Ministry of Health document says all passengers from the U.S. and Spain will have their temperatures taken upon arrival. If the passenger has a fever he or she is denied entry. If there is no fever, the visitors still must report their health condition daily to authorities.

The U.S. Embassy in Rwanda on Tuesday urged Americans who may have a fever or who have traveled to Ebola countries “to weigh carefully whether travel to Rwanda at this time is prudent.”

“Please note neither the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs nor the U.S. Embassy have authority over quarantine issues and cannot prevent a U.S. citizen from being quarantined should local health authorities require it,” the embassy said.

The pharmaceutical industry has completely taken over the treatment of medical and psychiatric treatment. Everything, and I am mean everything is geared towards getting every American on medication and keeping them on medication for the rest of their lives. There is no more vulnerable population, to this medical tyranny, than our children.

There is no greater example of this medical tyranny than the latest craze in unscientific psychiatric diagnostics than the brand new condition now being referred to as “Sluggish Cognitive Tempo” (SLT). I. As a former mental health therapist, I can barely hold back my laughter at this thinly veiled attempt to separate parents from their hard earned money by making them think that the their perfectly normal child is mentally ill.

Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (lol)

This is a remarkably ridiculous name for an even more ludicrous diagnosis. The main characteristics of SLT are vaguely described but include some combination of daydreaming, lethargy and slow mental processing, you know, like we do when we watch television.

The advocates of this diagnosis contend that SCT afflicts about two million children. And that great pharmaceutical whore, Eli Lilly, is waiting in the wings preparing to medicate the developing and highly vulnerable brains of these two million children with the latest in dangerous and mind-destroying psychotropic medications which will leave the user with a brain damaged future and a medical treatment history which will render many of these children with an uninsurable medical insurance future.

The Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology has sold its professional soul and its professional ethics to Big Pharma as it is seriously promoting this voodoo form of diagnostics. The latest issue of their publication donates a record 136 pages to the topic of SLT. And where do we find children with SLT? Probably standing next to the adults who have Restless Leg Syndrome.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-Edition IV & V

DSM is the Bible of mental illnesses. The book serves a training guide for graduate and the PhD students as well as serving as a professional guide for treatment intervention amongst mental health practitioners.

By the time a child is 21 years of age, under DSM -IV guidelines, 80% of all young adults qualify to be diagnosed as mentally ill and, as such, are subject to being medicated.

The newest version of DSM has made this problem far worse. Normal temper tantrums have been turned into a diagnosable and pharmacologically treatable illness called ‘Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder”. Normal adolescent rebellion is now being labeled as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder”. Normal childhood restlessness is now diagnosed as “ADHD” in children as early as two years of age. Childhood Autism and childhood Bipolar Disorder are pharmaceutical goldmines and have increased forty fold in the last 20 years.

According to the CDC, 11% of the country’s children are diagnosed with ADHD. This is ludicrous and is just not possible. These children have ADHD according to whom? The answer to this question consists of two parts. First, Big Pharma is using its influence to “push” the diagnostic criteria in the direction of many more positive diagnoses. More diagnoses means more profit-making pill pushing. Second, there is no illness, with these kinds of unsustainable rates of diagnosis that could impact the population to this degree. If there really were an 11% rate of autism in this country, we would be forced to change what is considered to be normal behavior since most mental illness models are loosely based upon a bell curve distribution. Therefore, just based on the surface evidence, these diagnostic rates cannot justified.

If these medications are dangerous for children, we would not know because very few scientific studies have examined the use of ADHD stimulant medications in young children. A widely referenced 2006 study found that the ADHD medication, methylphenidate, could “somewhat” mitigate ADHD like symptoms in preschoolers. However, the study’s conclusions were based on researched derived from insufficiently sized researched groups. Only about a dozen 3-year-olds were included in the study, and there were no 2-year-olds, yet we continue to medicate these young vulnerable minds. Most researchers on that study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, have significant financial ties to pharmaceutical companies that made ADHD medications.

A multitude of studies indicates that children who are prescribed psychotropic drugs are much more likely to become drug addicts as adults.

Parents Are the First Line of Defense

If you have ever sat in the waiting room of your child’s pediatrician’s office and you have seen well-dressed, attractive young adults enter the office armed with notebooks as they are ushered in to see the doctor ahead of the waiting patients, then there is a very good chance that your doctor is a Big Pharma whore. The well-dressed pill pushers are there to your child’s doctor in order to “make deals” and promise bonuses for prescribing certain drugs. The odds are stacked against your child before they ever their doctor.

In combating this medical tyranny, parents are the only line of defense. However, parents must be very careful in how they express their refusal in not allowing their children to be diagnosed with bogus conditions and treated with dangerous drugs.

When your doctor offers to put your child on mind-numbing drugs, seek a second opinion. However, be very, very, careful how seek that second opinion as it could cost you custody of your child.

Beware of CPS

There is no system ever devised by mankind that is guaranteed to rip husband and wife or father, mother and child apart so bitterly than our present Family Court System.

Judge Brian Lindsay

Retired Supreme Court Judge

New York, New York

Just ask Jodi Ferris, Anna Nikolayev, or Justina Pelltier’s parents what happens when a parent dares to question the almighty doctor and seek a second opinion for their child. The doctor and his wounded ego will frequently call CPS and the parent’s problem goes from bad to worse.

My advice is simple if you desire to seek a second medical opinion for your child. Do not tell your child’s pediatrician that is your intention. Take the prescription that the doctor writes, just do not fill the prescription. Then schedule a second opinion visit with another doctor. If you get a disconfirming diagnosis, then make immediate arrangements to change doctors. Once your child has a different doctor, the authorities are powerless in seizing your child for medical neglect when the complaining doctor is no longer the physician of record and the second doctor is not making a recommendation to medicate.

Conclusion

Thirty million adults, about 40% of the adult population, are on anti-depressants. Twenty million, or about 66% of this group, should not be on anti-depressants. Adults can say no, it is not the same issue when it comes to medicating your child. However, your child doesn’t have that same choice. You, as the parent, must make that choice for them.

Studies are showing that Bt toxins found in Monsanto crops are harmful to mammalian blood by damaging red blood cells and more. RBC’s are responsible for delivering oxygen to the body tissues through blood flow.

Bacillus thuringensis (Bt) is a bacterium commonly used as a biological pesticide. It is a microorganism that produces toxic chemicals. It occurs naturally in the environment, and is usually isolated from soil, insects and plant surfaces. Prior to this study, Bt was thought to be toxic only to insects, but recent studies are proving otherwise.

Dr. Mezzomo and his team of Scientists from the Department of Genetics and Morphology and the Institute of Biological Sciences, at University of Brasilia recently published a study that involved Bacillus thuringensis (Bt toxin) and its effects on mammalian blood. According to the study, the “Cry” toxins that are found in Monsanto’s GMO crops like corn and soy, are much more toxic to mammals than previously thought. The study was published in the Journal of Hematology and Thromboembolic Diseases.

We do not support animal testing, and think it is unnecessary. It should really be a no brainer that GMO crops cause significant damage to human health. Studies that don’t require animal testing have already proven the dangers of GMO consumption. This study unfortunately required the use of Swiss Albino Mice if Bt was to be properly examined. At the same time, most of us know that the existence of GMOs is completely unnecessary.

Advances in genetic engineering promise the expression of multiple Cry toxins in Bt-plants, known as gene pyramiding. Therefore, studies on non-target species are requirements of international protocols to verify the adverse effects of these toxins, ensuring human and environmental biosafety.

Due to its growing use in agricultural activities, Bt presence hasalready been detected in different environmental compartments such as soil and water. Consequently, the bioavailability of Cry proteins has increased, and for biosafety reasons their adverse effects might be studied, mainly for non-target organisms. Studies are therefore needed to evaluate Bt toxicity to non-target organisms; the persistence of Bt toxin and its stability in aquatic environments; and the risks to humans and animals exposed to potentially toxic levels of Bt through their diet.(1)

Thus, we aimed to evaluate, in Swiss albino mice, the hematotoxicity and genotoxicity of four Bt spore-crystals…
Scientists tested levels ranging from 27 mg to 270 mg over a seven day period, it was remarkably evident that the Cry toxins were hemotoxic, even at the lowest doses administered. Hemotoxins destroy red blood cells, disrupt blood clotting and cause organ degeneration and tissue damage.

The number of RBC’s, (red blood cells) as well as their size, were significantly reduced, and so were the levels of hemoglobin for oxygen to attach to. Every factor regarding RBC’s indicated some level of damage for all levels of toxin administered and across all cry proteins. The tests clearly demonstrated that Cry proteins resulting from the Bt toxin were cytotoxic (quality of being toxic to cells) to bone marrow cells. Studies contiually show that these proteins kill blood cells bytargeting the cell membranes of RBC’s.

Cry1Ab (the protein produced in common Bt corn and soy) induced microcytic hypochromic anemia in mice, even at the lowest tested dose of 27 mg/Kg, and this toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet [34]. These data, as well as increased bioavailability of these MCA in the environment, reinforce the need for more research, especially given that little is known about spore crystals’ adverse effects on non-target species

Dr. Mezzomo and his team are not the only group of scientists to discover the harmful effects of Bt toxins. Professor Joe Cummins, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario has also studied it. He concluded that that there is sufficient evidence that the Bt toxin will impact directly on human health through damaging the ileum, which is the final section of the small intestine that is responsible for the absorption of vitamin B12. He also points out that the Bt cry toxin gene has not been proven to be the same as the natural bacterial gene. As mentioned in the first paragraph, it occurs naturally in the environment, usually isolated from soil, insects and plant surfaces.

It seems that everyday brings forth new information regarding GMO’s. We have so much evidence that points to just how harmful these foods are, yet they continue to be mass produced and the corporations that develop them are constantly protected. The truth still remains, you still have a choice as to what you put into your body. I encourage everybody reading this to further their research, most ‘industries’ we have on the planet today really aren’t necessary, we are just made to believe that they are.

How much longer will we deny the growing body of research linking Roundup to infertility before calling this chemical a contraceptive?

Following closely on the heels of the EPA’s decision to allow Roundup herbicide residues in your food at concentrations a million times higher than shown carcinogenic, a concerning new study published in the journal Free Radical Medicine & Biology implicates the herbicide, and its main ingredient glyphosate, in male infertility, at concentration ranges well within the EPA’s “safe level” for food.

Performed by Brazilian researchers, the study found acute Roundup exposure at low doses (36ppm, 0.036g/L) for 30 minutes induced cell death in Sertoli cells in prepubertal rat testis. Sertoli cells are known as “mother” or “nurse” cells within the testicles, as they are responsible for maintaining the health of sperm cells, and are required for normal male sexual development.

Roundup herbicide exposure was found to induce oxidative stress and to activate multiple-stress response pathways within affected cells, and was associated with an increase in intracellular calcium (Ca2+) concentration leading to Ca2+ overload, and cell death.

Thirty-minute incubation tests with glyphosate alone (36 ppm) also increased Ca2+ uptake, and both Roundup and glyphosate were observe to downregulate reduced glutathione levels. As glutathione is an antioxidant (electron donor) found within every cell in the human body, protecting it against oxidative stress, as well as maintaining a wide range of biochemical reactions such as DNA and protein synthesis and repair, amino acid transport, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid and enzyme activation, a dysregulation of glutathione can result in a wide range of adverse effects.

The researchers noted “Glyphosate has been described as an endocrine disruptor affecting the male reproductive system; however, the molecular basis of its toxicity remains to be clarified. We could propose that Roundup® toxicity, implicating in Ca2+ overload, cell signaling misregulation, stress response of the endoplasmic reticulum and/or depleted antioxidant defenses could contribute to Sertoli cell disruption of spermatogenesis that could impact male fertility.”

This study adds to a growing body of research implicating Roundup herbicide in male infertility:

A 2007 study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology found that Roundup herbicide altered the structure of the testis and epididymal region (part of the tubular spermatic duct system), as well as the serum levels of testosterone and estradiol, in male ducks, leading the researchers to conclude that Roundup “…may cause disorder in the morphophysiology of the male genital system of animals.”

A 2010 male rat study published in the Archives of Toxicology revealed prepubertal exposure to commercial formulation of the herbicide glyphosate alters testosterone levels and testicular morphology, leading researchers to describe the herbicide as “a potent endocrine disruptor.”

A 2011 male rat study published in the Archives of Toxicology revealed maternal exposure to glyphosate disturbed the masculinization process and promoted behavioral changes and histological and endocrine problems in reproductive parameters.

A 2011 study published in the journal Toxicology In Vitro found a glyphosate-based herbicide induced necrosis and apoptosis in mature rat testicular cells in vitro, and testosterone decrease at lower levels. In the study, Roundup and glyphosate at concentrations as low as 1 part per million produced a testosterone decrease in sperm cells by 35%.
A more recent 2013 study in male rats published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Reproductive Safety found glyphosate (in combination with another pesticide) provoked severe oxidative stress in male testes, resulting in inhibited testosterone production and disrupted gonadotropin levels.

Given the growing body of research clearly revealing Roundup’s toxicity to the germline of animal species, the argument can be made that this chemical has contraceptive properties and therefore genocidal consequences. By directly affecting the biologically immortal cells within the testes, whose DNA contains over 3 billion years worth of information essential for there being a future for our species as a whole, Roundup should be considered an instrument of mass destruction. At the very least, the precautionary principle should be applied, and any chemical that signals the potential to disrupt or destroy our species’ germline cells, should be banned unless the manufacturer can prove beyond a reasonable doubt its safety to exposed populations.

For additional research on the wide spectrum of adverse health effects now linked to glyphosate-based herbicide formulations such as Roundup, view our research articles on GMOs, as well as view and download our free biomedical PDF on glyphosate/Roundup research:

PDF on the adverse health effects associated with glyphosate-based herbicide